Straw Polls: Ron Paul has come in the top 3 in
almost every single straw poll. He has also won
most of them.

Ron Paul support is not actually measured by the
Gallop polls. They only measure past primary
voters(those people who were registered Republicans
and voted in 2000)…but only about 25% of Ron Paul
supporters voted in the 2000 Republican
primary…that means that Ron Paul’s numbers are not
4%, but actually close to 16%

..a grassroots network that dwarfs the
competition(47,831 members + 5,487 interested,
growing at 6% per week)…compared to less than a 200
for the 2nd place, and 0 for Rudy

Ron Paul will raise the $500,000 in about 3
days, 14 hours…giving him plenty of time to raise
$1,000,000 in 1 week. These are HARDLY 2nd tier
numbers.

While I do find the kid awfully annoying, seeing
overreactions like this-- often by people who aren't
even police officers, really gets my blood boiling

Excerpt:

The four players in the present-day American
political drama were all represented at the
University of Florida on Monday:

1) Andrew Meyer writhing on the ground in agony
represents the Constitution and the freedom of
speech and the protection from unlawful arrest that
it enshrines.

2) The police holding Mr. Meyer to the ground
and inflicting torture with 50,000 volts of
electricity represent the fascist forces in America
led by George W. Bush and their attempts to kill
the Constitution.

3) John Kerry droning impotently on in the
background and allowing the torture to occur
through his shameful lack of courage and principle
represents today's Democratic Party.

4) The majority of the students who sat
passively by while one of their own was tortured
for speaking out represent the largely apathetic
American populace.

My New Hampshire phone rings (caller ID
000-000-0000 WTF?)and I pick it up out of
curiosity. "This is (talking like a magpie so I
haven't got a clue what the name of the company
is)Research. Would you like to be part of a poll
for the Democratic presidential primary candidate?"
I agree and the woman rapidly reads the list of
candidates. "Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd, Biden
and Richardson." I say, "Kucinich." The woman on
the phone says "Who?" I say, "Kucinich. Dennis
Kucinich." I hear coaching in the background -
apparently the call is being monitored. "I'm sorry,
but Dennis Kucinich is not on our list. Is there
anyone on the list I gave you who you would vote
for?"

So there you have it. Kucinich is down in the
polls because he isn't included in the polls . . .
and you can forget about Gravel, too.

"In the Pentagon today," he says, "there is
active proselytizing by Christian groups that is
allowed by the chain of command. When your superior
expects you to show up at his prayer breakfast, you
may not feel free to say no. It's not at all clear
what will happen to your career. He writes your
efficiency report. And the next thing you know, you
have, in the culture of the Pentagon, more and more
active religious outreach."

While libertarians are a diverse group of people
with many philosophical starting points, they share
a defining belief: that everyone should be free to
do as they choose, so long as they don't infringe
upon the equal freedom of others.

Shares in one of Britain's largest lenders
tumbled another 30 percent Monday as customers,
driven by fears of insolvency, made run on the bank
and withdrew billions.

Northern Rock's problems came against the
background of signs of cooling in Britain's booming
housing market.In an interview published Monday in
The Daily Telegraph, former U.S. Federal Reserve
Board chairman Alan Greenspan warned that Britain
was susceptible to some of the problems now roiling
the U.S. real estate market. "Britain is more
exposed than we are in the sense that you have a
good deal more adjustable-rate mortgages," he
said.

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator
Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of
companies that profited from their involvement with
the financial backers of Nazi Germany. The Guardian
has obtained confirmation from newly discovered
files in the US National Archives that a firm of
which Prescott Bush was a director was involved
with the financial architects of Nazism. His
business dealings, which continued until his
company's assets were seized in 1942 under the
Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60
years later to a civil action for damages being
brought in Germany against the Bush family by two
former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of
pre-election controversy. The evidence has also
prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor
to argue that the late senator's action should have
been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and
comfort to the enemy.

A very interesting read. Looks like the apple doesn't
fall far from the tree.

Excerpt:

In the early 1930s, a secret collection of
prosperous men are said to have assembled in New
York City to discuss the dissolution of America's
democracy. As a consequence of the Great
Depression, the countryside was littered with
unemployed, and the world's wealthy were watching
as their fortunes deflated and their investments
evaporated. As men of action, the well-financed New
York group sought to eliminate what they reasoned
to be the crux of the catastrophe: the United
States government.

According to MacGuire, the League's members
could easily manipulate the media to provide public
approval. He went on to suggest that the League
planned to protect the country from communism by
mimicking the methods of Benito Mussolini, a
dictator who had risen to power a decade earlier
with the support of a veteran militia. Mussolini's
fascist government had successfully restored
Italy's industrial viability, so it was deemed as
an ideal model for repairing America's impoverished
economy. According to the plan, Roosevelt and other
existing US leadership would be allowed to remain
as figureheads, while the true policy-making power
would fall to a new cabinet position which Smedley
Butler would occupy: The Secretary for General
Affairs.

Greenspan's finally coming out and speaking his mind
in his new book, and what he's saying is pretty
interesting.

Excerpt:

Greenspan's reference in "The Age of Turbulence:
Adventures in a New World" to what he calls the
"politically inconvenient" fact that the war was
"largely about oil" was first reported by The
Washington Post on Saturday and has proved
controversial.

His main support for Hussein's ouster, though,
was economically motivated. "If Saddam Hussein had
been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those
sands," Greenspan said, "our response to him would
not have been as strong as it was in the first gulf
war. And the second gulf war is an extension of the
first. My view is that Saddam, looking over his
30-year history, very clearly was giving evidence
of moving towards controlling the Straits of
Hormuz, where there are 17, 18, 19 million barrels
a day" passing through.

Greenspan said disruption of even 3 to 4 million
barrels a day could translate into oil prices as
high as $120 a barrel -- far above even the recent
highs of $80 set last week -- and the loss of
anything more would mean "chaos" to the global
economy.

I've long been very skeptical about the way the GDP
and CPI numbers are calculated. More reason to
believe it.

Excerpt:

Since 2004 I have written a number of articles
pointing out that offshoring is really labor
arbitrage and that if offshoring had the mutual
economic benefits associated with free trade, there
would be US employment growth in export and
import-competitive industries. Instead, employment
in these industries has declined in the US but
grown remarkably in Asia. In the 21st century the
US economy has been able to create net new jobs
only in nontradable domestic services, such as
waitresses and bartenders and health and social
services. Moreover, the growth in productivity and
GDP attributed to the US economy were inconsistent
with the stagnant real incomes of Americans.
Somehow productivity and GDP were growing strongly,
but it wasn’t showing up in the incomes of
Americans.

Business Week’s June 18 cover story by MIchael
Mandel explains the problem identified by Houseman.
Economist Matthew J. Slaughter, a proponent of
offshoring, says: “There are potentially big
implications. I worry about how pervasive this is.”
Business Week says the implications are big. The
cover story estimates that 40% of the gain in US
manufacturing output since 2003 is phantom GDP.

- Take some trinket with you (it can be anything
really), hand it to some stranger, along with a
phone number and say "In thirty years dial this
number. You'll know what to do after that." Then
slip away.

The September 7 video shows bin Laden dressed in
a white hat, white shirt and yellow sweater.
Krawetz notes "this is the same clothing he wore in
the 2004-10-29 video. In 2004 he had it unzipped,
but in 2007 he zipped up the bottom half. Besides
the clothing, it appears to be the same background,
same lighting, and same desk. Even the camera angle
is almost identical." Krawetz also notes that "if
you overlay the 2007 video with the 2004 video, his
face has not changed in three years--only his beard
is darker and the contrast on the picture has been
adjusted."Then there are the audio edits. Krawetz
says "the new audio has no accompanying 'live'
video and consists of multiple audio recordings."
References to current events are made only during
the still frame sections and after splices within
the audio track." And there are so many splices
that I cannot help but wonder if someone spliced
words and phrases together. I also cannot rule out
a vocal imitator during the frozen-frame audio. The
only way to prove that the audio is really bin
Laden is to see him talking in the video," Krawetz
says.

Sometimes I want to
start doing studio work again just to justify buying
certain bits of gear (ironically the same reason why
I don't want to do studio work anymore). This is one
of those pieces of gear. It's truly lustworthy.

The world needs more of this. Machines that can
understand how you feel so that they can give you
fattening foods. The future has finally arrived!

Dr. Whippy, had people queue
despite the wet wet weather in the streets of
Linz during ars electronica. The machine
proffers soft scoop ice cream according to the
perceived unhappiness level of the customer.

"Employing voice stress analysis of the user’s
answers to specific questions, varying degrees of
unhappiness are measured and the counteractive
quantity of ice cream is dispensed: The more unhappy
you are, the more ice cream you need."

The days of the dollar as the world's “reserve
currency” may be drawing to a close. In August,
foreign central banks and governments dumped a
whopping 3.8% of their holdings of US debt. Rising
unemployment and the ongoing housing slump have
triggered fears of a recession sending wary foreign
investors running for the exits. China, Japan and
Taiwan have been leading the sell off which has
caused the steepest decline since 1992.

I did mention I sold all my stocks and took the
dollars and moved them into Czech crowns last month.
I would recommend anyone else to do the same. I wish
I had done it 7 years ago. I would have more than
doubled my money.

Excerpt:

Speculators, investors, and central bankers have
figured out that the US government and the Bernanke
Fed will not protect the dollar - not when millions
of Americans are having trouble making their
mortgage payments. The US money supply is
increasing - nearly five times faster than GDP
growth. And now, fearing a Japan-style deflation,
the Fed is likely to cut rates later this month.The
Chinese have one of the largest dollar piles in the
world.“Is China quietly dumping US Treasuries?”
asks Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the English
press.“A sharp drop in foreign holdings of US
Treasury bonds over the last five weeks has raised
concerns that China is quietly withdrawing its
funds from the United States, leaving the dollar
increasingly vulnerable.”

This is one of the most exciting green energy
discoveries of all time. I really hope this works out
to be a net positive of energy after the energy
expended to separate the hydrogen from the water.
Then I'll just tank up my car in the ocean and roll
up the coast.

Excerpt:

So, Mr. Kanzius said, he put sea water in a test
tube, then trained his machine on it, producing an
unexpected spark. In time he and laboratory owners
struck a match and ignited the water, which
continued burning as long as it remained in the
radio-frequency field.

This is an enlightening thread a
friend sent me about land ownership in the
states and whether or not anyone really
owns their land. I've heard other interesting
things like this about the fact that the US is
taking out massive loans guaranteed against the
land owned by the American people.

The good news is that this guy thinks there's a
process by which you can obtain the real title to
your property. Interesting.

Excerpt:

As a result of generations of constructive fraud
perpetuated against the American people, and the
peoples of the world, we've been conned into
believing we are "owning" property, when in fact,
and by law, we're only in " possession" of property
utilizing it as a renter or tenant would. So long
as we pay our rent (i.e., mortgages), get the
licenses, pay the fees, have it insured, regulated,
zoned and permitted, we can still remain in "
possession."But as soon as we exercise what we
believe is our sovereign right to do as we please
with our private property, providing we don't
damage or injure another or their property, we
often get slam-dunked by a fine, eviction or
foreclosure. We must learn about allodial titles,
land patents, deeds and conveyances to reassert our
sovereign right to private property.

Wow, revelation. When you take out oil and housing
prices from the Consumer Price Index it looks pretty
good. Magic! Put them back in, not so much so.

Excerpt:

"In 1983, the Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS]
was faced with an awkward dilemma. If it continued
to include the cost of housing in the Consumer
Price Index, the CPI would reflect an inflation
rate of 15%, thereby making the country's economy
look like a banana republic. Worse, since investors
and bond traders have historically demanded a 2%
real return after inflation, that would mean that
bond and money market yields could climb as high as
17%."Yikes! What to do, what to do, what to do
whattodowhattodo? "The BLS's solution was as simple
as it was shocking: exclude the cost of housing as
a component in the CPI, and substitute a so-called
'Owner Equivalent Rent' component based on what a
homeowner might 'rent' his house for." Hahaha! The
government resorts to lying! "Wow! Why didn't we
think of this before?" they are heard to ask among
themselves. Fortunately for the government, it
worked. "The result of this statistical sleight of
hand was immediate and gratifying," Mr Hardaway
writes, "for the reported inflation index quickly
dropped to 2%"

I wish this was still their platform, instead of the
current platform- bomb, steal, and lie.

Excerpt:

" We are opposed to further grants of the public
lands to corporations and monopolies", "It
disapproves of the resort to unconstitutional laws
for the purpose of removing evils", "[Import taxes]
should be so adjusted as to aid in securing
remunerative wages to labor", and "Any system of
the civil service under which the subordinate
positions of the government are considered rewards
for mere party zeal is fatally demoralizing".

This is one common thread among fascist regimes,
detaining people without probable cause because they
are against the regime. Bush is making an art form of
it.

Excerpt:

Maher Arar, a Canadian software consultant was
detained at Kennedy and “rendered” to Syria where
he was imprisoned for more than a year by goons
that beat him with a heavy metal cable. After the
Canadian furor over Arar’s illegal kidnapping and
torture, he was eventually released as he had zero
ties to terrorists. Yet the Bush gang refused to
concede error; refused to provide documents or
witnesses to Canadian investigators; and claimed
last January it had “secret information” that
justified keeping Arar on the watch list.

This actually worked a lot better than I expected it
to. Mainly because the violinist is a genius. You
don't find many violinists that can improvise like
that (unless he really wrote all that out, which
would also be impressive).

Well, a few days ago, someone bet about $1.8 billion
that the broad market indeces would go down 30%
before september 21. Now a second big fish has jumped
in the pond and plonked down $4.5 billion on exactly
the same thing. I'm happy I sold all my stocks a
month ago, and I'm worried about why people are doing
this. They are very similar to the Bin Laden trades
that happened before 9/11. I don't like to sound
paranoid, but if something does happen, I want it on
my web site first.

I'm not entirely sure why, but this is one thing I
just must own. It's a little something researchers at
USC have cooked up, and it's pretty kickass. It
displays a true 360 degree viewable hologram. This is
very different from the holograms you may have seen
previously (even holographic video), because they are
usually only viewable from about 20 degrees. This one
works from the top, any side, bottom, you name it.
Finally one of those things we were promised from the
future. Just don't stick your hands in the spinning
mirror kids!

A good and quick summary of what the fed doesn't do
to help the average person.

Excerpt:

Besides having created the mortgage-liquidity
nightmare, Greenspan and the Fed can also chalk up
another accomplishment: inflation. Inflation is so
serious that it has more than wiped out any income
gains coming to the majority of families in the
past seven years.The New York Times reports that
"Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005
than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year that they
had to make ends meet with less money than at the
peak of the last economic expansion, new government
data shows. While incomes have been on the rise
since 2002, the average income in 2005 was $55,238,
still nearly 1 percent less than the $55,714 in
2000, after adjusting for inflation, analysis of
new tax statistics show."